


Mutual Trust

by JulyStorms



Series: Though the Stars Walk Backward [6]
Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 17:50:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6339325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulyStorms/pseuds/JulyStorms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you trust me?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mutual Trust

**Author's Note:**

> Ginaka + 12. believe, requested by Kagarizard on Tumblr.

They’re at her apartment to pick up some music she’d promised to bring to Hinakawa. She’d forgotten, it seemed, until they were driving past, and then she’d slammed on the brakes, apologizing profusely, and parked. She promises in the car that it will only take a moment; she remembers where she left everything. But she asks him to come with her, anyway, and that is what piques his interest.

It’s not that he suspects Tsunemori of making a pass at him; he feels confident, now, that she’ll never do such a thing–never cross the line of their workforce friendship. He’s more than all right with that, though sometimes he imagines he might like to do things that fall on the other side of that line, like hold her hand or smooth back her hair after the wind has tousled it.

His curiosity is in the fact that Tsunemori must have a reason for asking him up to her apartment when the very thing she’s looking for is already found. He watches her carefully on the elevator ride up, and then as she unlocks her door, and rather than look around her large apartment he tries to glean a clue of the circumstances from her expression or demeanor.

But everything seems reasonably normal.

Until they’re in her bedroom a few moments later and she touches his hand, presses old CDs and tapes into them. Her palms are sweaty.

“Do you believe in Sibyl?” she asks nonchalantly as she pulls more CDs out of a box at the foot of her bed.

“It exists,” he admits, hesitantly, alarm creeping into his veins. 

She smiles, exasperation leaking through, and shakes her head. “No, I meant…do you believe in it. Do you  _trust_ it?”

He knows this is important somehow–dangerous. He remembers what feels like hundreds of meetings with Chief Kasei, her unimpressed expression matching her voice.  _I expect results, Inspector_. He can almost hear it in his head, can feel the unspoken but very clear implication that his job is on the line. He thinks then of his father’s crime co-efficient rising, of how it felt to lose him as a child, and then how it felt to lose him again as an adult.

He frowns and remembers all the times Tsunemori insisted on making a case ten times more difficult because she thought it would save a life–and of all the times her intuition had served her well.

“I don’t know,” he tells her, feeling uneasy. Dread settles into his stomach. “What about you?”

She glances up again, expression so intense he’s not sure what to think. “We need it right now,” she says. “Without it, this country would be ruined. But…” She hands him a few sloppily organized records, the covers slipping off. He wonders where she even found them.

“But?” he prompts.

“But I don’t like it.”

He can’t say he likes it either, considering how it’s governed most of his life. But Tsunemori’s right: Japan needs Sibyl. They don’t even really have a standing government, and Sibyl is only spreading.

He sets the disorganized pile on her bed, and is distressed to realize it looks quite unslept in. He kneels beside her, puts his good hand on her shoulder. “Is there a reason you’re asking me this, Tsunemori?”

She smiles, places one of her hands over his. Her palm is still damp, but she squeezes his fingers, and somehow it helps him feel a little less on edge. “Do you trust me?” she asks.

“With everything.” He colors slightly at the admission, but refuses to take it back. It’s the truth. He loves her and cares about her and they are good friends, considering the different positions in life they occupy, now. “What is it?”

“I just wanted to know,” she tells him, her voice almost a whisper. 

He can practically feel his heart as it jumps in his chest, worry coating his throat. “What’s wrong?” he asks, voice steadier than he feels.

She takes a deep breath and lets it out again. “I trust you, too, Ginoza-san…and someday it will be with everything.” 

The weight of her expression tells him that whatever this is, it’s important. He lets go of her shoulder to take her hand, squeezing it earnestly. “When that time comes, I will be ready for it.”

She looks relieved, but makes to stand. “We need to hurry back, Ginoza-san, before someone grows suspicious.”

He nods, gets to his feet, and organizes the music into a neat pile to carry out. He’s always suspected that Tsunemori was in over her head, had suspected it from early on. She’s always been too capable and too unlucky all at once.

But it’s not until they’re leaving her apartment that her loneliness dawns on him. Her apartment is sparse, and while sloppy in places, hardly lived in despite it being her recorded residence for a substantial amount of time, now. Too, she rarely communicates with her friends; he remembers her telling him about her closest friend getting engaged–and he had blamed her lonely expression on her job removing her from her social life, but that was hardly all there was to it, was there? Of course not.

He watches her lock her door behind her and feels a wave of sympathy push through him.

If Tsunemori has known something all this time, something that’s put her in over her head, then she’s spent years dealing with whatever-it-is alone.

She walks ahead of him, leading the way down the hall toward the elevator. In it, he looks over to her, wondering at the circles beneath her eyes. “Tsunemori,” he says, voice level and neutral and as light as he can make it.

“Hm?”

“It will be all right. Whatever it is.”

They’re empty words coming from an ignorant man like him, but he hopes his expression conveys more than he’s saying: if she needs him, he’ll be there. And maybe together they still won’t stand a chance in the face of her problems, but it’ll be much better than her having to go it alone for any longer than necessary.

Still, she touches his arm, the good one, and squeezes lightly. “Thank you, Ginoza-san,” she says. “I hope so.”


End file.
